We have completed several projects at the SF Columbarium over the last few years. The restoration of 110 year old stained glass windows, the restoration of the stained glass Rotunda Dome, new stained glass skylights and new stained glass windows.
Our most recent project there was the repair and restoration of four Skylights. These were all located on the second floor.
As you will see from the pictures I have included, all four were in very deteriorated condition. So much so in fact that we decided the only way to save them was to completely re-build them. We dis-assembled them completely and started over.
Another aspect to the job which made it much more challenging is that these were originally built and laid in place as one continuous stained glass panel in each skylight. The only way these could have been laid in place was to do so from the roof before the glass enclosures were installed above these skylights. This meant that we had no way of simply lowering the glass from the skylight frame…so, we had to remove and lower the entire frame with the glass still in them…very, very heavy and cumbersome. That design had also meant that no one could clean the upper side of the stained glass and as the pictures show, they had accumulated many, many years of grime.
In our re-building of them, we divided the stained glass panels of each skylight into three sections rather than one continuous panel and added additional support to each panel. This made these much easier to work with and also means it will now be possible to clean the upper side of each panel.
The re-building was well worth the extra effort, these are now, once again, magnificent pieces of stained glass art. We hope you agree.